TJ Cornish

Disclaimer- I’ve played a vintage mechanical B3 like twice in my life, so I can’t comment on authenticity at that level; my comments are based on what my ears hear in others’ recordings vs what I can get out of the XK5 and prior experience with other clonewheels. I’m a church guy and play worship/rock organ. Not a jazz guy. What I like about the XK5: It feels great. The extra key contacts make a huge difference compared to my former clone wheels. I love the expression pedal with kick switch for Leslie speed. I have really appreciated the custom tone wheel option - I’m going for “well-behaved” and “sits in the mix” rather than replicating every quirk of the original, and on basically all of the clonewheels I have used including the XK-5 by default, the 5 1/3 drawbar just screams on about the top 8 keys. Being able to tweak that one drawbar down on just those few keys has made a big difference. Love multiple sets of drawbars and the physical controls. I think it sounds good; everyone else tells me it sounds great. With all of our guitar folks having gone to digital rigs, I am now the only person on the team with tubes in my rig. Less favorite things about the XK5: The menu structure is, um, interesting. I have struggled with saving presets - I want to have preset keys save stuff other than drawbar settings. It is possible and I think I sort of figured it out once, but it was so painful I never tried again. I am a little bit worried about the DIN connector that the pedal uses - I’ve had my XK5 since 2018 and play weekly and it has been OK in that time, but it isn’t as robust a connector as a 1/4” jack. The good news is it should be replaceable. The orange LED that is the “virtual filament” is a little bit lame. I get why they do it and they are far from the only device that does, but it’s an affectation, and it annoys me. A general comment - there is a large fraction of users here that want everything lighter. I get it, but that comes at a cost. The XK5 is solid in a good way, and manufacturers don’t put lead in keyboards just to piss us off. If you want wood, want all the physical controls, want robustness, want an internal power supply, etc., it is what it is. There are lesser instruments that are lighter to choose from.

I did a quick Google to figure out what you are hinting at - appears to be this: https://sector101.co.uk/sr-jv-romulator.html Looks very fun!! The only SR-JV-capable board I still own is an XP-80 and it's just holding down some floor in the spare bedroom, so this is not probably a project for me, but it's great engineering and I'm glad to see people playing around!

There is a lot of style here…

Lol - I love the dirty clothes and/or unmade bed in the second video. That's peak YouTube if anything is.

Or for $26K you can have 98 keys.

If that truly happened, the MDF might be the only part of the keyboard that survived. MDF can take some liquid for a short period of time. The electronics and rubber inside will have more trouble with the sugar and acid, not to mention the conductivity.

I don’t know why it is desirable for any amp to produce DC; I concede the fact that some may exist in audiophoolery land. They don’t in my world of professional sound systems. A square wave of any audio frequency is not remotely the same as DC. RE our “friend” - a more powerful amplifier of equivalent design doesn’t sound any better than a less powerful amplifier when both are run in their linear range (not clipping). The only reason to seek a larger amp is for more output potential. Thank you very much for ending your continual repetition of your interesting understanding of audio physics. We appreciate it.

Just clarifying, because I suspect I will get an “I told you so” from someone, clipping does not create DC, even if the amp can produce DC. A sine wave of 50Hz with amplitude increased so that it is now a square wave is still a 50Hz wave; it just has more high harmonics. Your $35,000 heateramps’s ability to make DC is a different thing altogether.

Mea culpa; there are extremely specialized amps without high pass filters. Not sure that’s the norm in studio or live sound reinforcement situations, but I give.

lol. You can repeat your misunderstanding as many times as you want to; it’s still not correct. First of all, your amp doesn’t make DC. I don’t care what happens with a battery and a speaker; that’s not what happens with an amp. ALL AMPS THAT ARE NOT BROKEN HAVE A HIGH PASS FILTER AND DO NOT PASS DC. DC has never been useful to the production of sound; it robs power handling with no acoustic benefit. I won’t argue this with you; check any spec sheet, go ahead and try to get your amp to do this - send a DC signal in, plug your driver on the output, watch what happens. Your voice coil will move in whatever direction it moves relative to polarity of the input, then it will settle back to its resting position because the amp’s high pass filter filters out the DC. Secondly, the waveform of the signal does not directly translate to the position of the driver. It is an accelerating force in one direction or the other. Your driver has mass. It takes time to get where it is going. Once it gets to where the signal tells it to go, it doesn’t stop; it keeps ringing due to the springiness of the assembly. How much depends on materials, the size of the driver, damping factor of the amp, etc. Hoping for the best that you agree with me thus far, we are now left to the thought experiment of a tiny slice of time where the signal on a square wave is flat. We will consider JazzPiano88’s NAD amp with a high pass filter of 10Hz (this seems to be lower than many; 20Hz is probably more common), so the maximum amount of time a theoretical driver could be held in position is 1/2 the period of the low-pass value of 10Hz, which is 1/20th of a second, or 50 milliseconds. This means that your driver is still fanning itself at full travel 20 times per second, even when sent a worst case square wave. The issue is and has always been about the power handling of the driver, not the shape of the waveform, and not that the driver “hangs out at full travel positions and heats without moving”. I know we both agree that clipping is bad. I have already explained where the extra energy of a clipped waveform goes - to higher harmonics. This is why adding any distortion effect always brightens the sound. It does not and cannot make the fundamental frequency louder. Whether this actually causes damage depends on the power handling of the driver in question. You can put your 100w amp in full square wave at the frequency of choice in one of my 4000w speakers and it will be annoying, but not cause any damage. Conversely, your 100W amp operating at below clip into a 10W driver may be death. For hopefully the last time to our friend seeking more volume: 1. We assume that our friend has an amp such that at program power (1/8 peak power handling, which equates to typical music just at the point of clipping) for a certain style of music that our friend wants to listen to it is perfectly matched to the power handling of our friend’s speaker. 2. We assume that this person is not happy with the level they are achieving with their existing amp; otherwise they would not be seeking to turn it up. 3. Our theoretical amp if driven to extreme clipping (1/3 power handling) can produce 2X the electrical power compared to an unclipped signal, which in a perfect world would produce 3dBSPL more sound, with that additional energy being in the form of harmonics. In reality, our non-ideal speaker is probably entering power compression, where you get less additional output per input due to the impedance of the coil increasing due to heat. 4. We both agree that clipping is bad, and discourage our friend from doing that. We take divergent paths. - You tell him to go buy an amp 2X the size of his original amp so that Mr. Friend can get his additional sound out, and hopefully become happy, because you tell him the root issue is clipping of his amp, and not power handling of his speaker. Mr. Friend now operates his new amp just before the point of clipping. Mr. Friend’s speaker is now receiving twice the power input as it was previously which has to be dissipated by heat, and the result of this additional energy is at best 3dBSPL more, but is likely less due to power compression. This new energy- even if it doesn’t immediately blow something up, will shorten the life of the speaker. - I tell him that his speakers are inadequate and his choices are to either be disciplined and not run his amp into clipping, or go buy speakers that are more capable with appropriate amplification that can meet Mr. Friend’s need for SPL with enough headroom so Mr. Friend won’t be tempted to drive his amp to clipping. Your scenario can work on the margin - it is probably possible to get slightly more usable output from a given speaker with an amp slightly oversized (note that is an extreme simplification - it is very difficult to model speaker capacity as musical content varies widely, and even things like ambient temperature of the room can have a material effect). However, I don’t believe this works in the real world. Anyone tempted to turn up an amp already on the verge of clipping will not be satisfied with maybe 2dB more output; all you are doing is giving them a bigger heater with which to cook their speakers.

Your NAD amp appears to have been produced in the 1970’s and predates my experience in audio; however according to Wikipedia, even your NAD amp seems to have a high pass filter, as the frequency range is listed as 10Hz on the low end. If you send me your amp I will gladly recycle it for you and suggest you get some kind of modern monitor with internal DSP, multiple amp channels, and limiting.

There are very few amplifiers that can produce a DC signal long enough in duration to do damage to a speaker. There were some 1970’s era amps that had this issue (and issue is the right word for it - no amp should be able to do this); virtually every amp made in the last year has a HPF of 20Hz or so that will prevent this from happening, unless the amp is damaged.

Grey, you admit that it is ultimately power consumption that damages speakers, but you indicate that shape of the wave matters. You are incorrect; a triangle wave of equivalent power (area under the curve) to a square wave at any frequency you care to examine will have the same heating power, and the same destructive potential. The same is true for whatever shape wave you want to consider. An amp driven into clipping puts out more energy than an amp not driven into clipping (up to 3dB more, AKA 2X the watts), but a larger amp putting out the equivalent SPL of your clipped amp will have similar heating power to the clipped amp, with the main difference being that the extra energy of the clipped amp is in the form of HF signal, which puts HF drivers at risk. I have significant experience in professional sound reinforcement and I have owned many amplifiers capable of putting out 4000 watts into a 4Ω load and speakers that have matching capability. Your hypothetical 90W high frequency driver would typically be paired with a 2000W low frequency driver. It takes much more energy to reproduce low frequencies than high frequencies. If the speaker you are considering has a 90W HF driver and a 90W LF driver then I guess you would be correct that in that instance you would be unlikely to blow a HF driver with a 100W amp, but I have never seen a speaker built that way because it doesn’t make sense. Doing a quick look on Sweetwater, the typical studio monitor has something like a 5:1 power ratio of LF:HF. As to the LF driver’s experience being sent a square wave - if like some cheap speakers the LF driver gets the full range signal and the HF is run with just a HPF, then yes, the LF driver theoretically gets the whole square wave, but the corners of the square wave - the part that is different from a sine wave, are small in magnitude and don’t contribute significantly to heating. If your speaker has a better crossover that contains both a HPF for the HF driver and a LPF driver for the LF driver, then the LF driver doesn’t even see the square wave; it sees a sine wave with a slightly flatter top - the flattening due to the harmonics the driver gets below the crossover frequency. I agree there is a duty cycle factor here, but as I stated above, a larger amp driven to the same apparent volume will have the same duty cycle issues on the LF side, but the extra energy goes to the HF driver, not the LF driver. RE our hypothetical friends with too small speakers plus a too big amp - it takes double the electrical watts to get just 3dBSPL more output. Maybe some of your friends live in that knife-edge area where that 3dB is the difference between not enough and just right, but in my not insignificant experience, I find that if the user is unhappy with whatever volume their rig can make pre-clipping, the barely discernible difference of the extra 3dB that twice the amp would make isn’t going to cut it. Making them happy means significantly more output - usually 6dB (4x the watts) or more. That’s definitely going to require different speakers. The best thing that has happened in the last 20 years is multi-amped speakers with electronic crossovers, time alignment, internal limiting, and the whole ball of wax making them relatively plug and play. All of the above is trivia from another age for 99% of speaker users. Please leave your condescension at home. Thanks.

This is not accurate. The shape of the wave does not automatically harm a driver - heck - every synth on the planet uses square waves as an oscillator source. The issue, as you point out, is power handling. Square waves - at least in units of time relevant for audio (at some point a square wave at very low frequency is essentially DC and can indeed be power dissipation without cooling from movement) are composed of not a single frequency, but the fundamental plus odd harmonics. In fact, your speaker’s ability to reproduce close to a square wave indicates excellent transient response and high frequency resolution, which is desirable and contributes to fidelity. Clipping of an amp - either the power amp or a preamp - can be an issue because high frequency content is generated by the clipping which wasn’t there in the original signal (those new odd harmonics), which can increase power sent to a band where a driver is less capable of handling that power - the HF driver. Even in this case, though, the issue is power handling, not the shape of the wave. The ‘I’d sell them a bigger amp, not bigger speakers’ is a pet fallacy of mine - anyone who is unhappy with the performance of their setup such that they run them into clipping will not be happy with a larger amp that may buy them a couple of dB worth of less distorted sound; they will just run the larger amp into clipping too, and destroy those too-small speakers even faster.

Which version was used with the toilet paper over the tweeters? I tried whatever the powered NS-10 replacements Yamaha had on offer 20 years ago and I think my ears still hurt from the 3K ice pick or whatever it was that made them so fatiguing. Not sorry I left the store with the Mackie HR-824s. I'm interested in the Kali's - will have to check them out at some point.

According to Moessieurs, Live Set Mode is not in this version yet, but is expected when the full version ships this summer.

Firmware 1.20 released and supposedly the first version of the VST is going to be released today, though I haven't found a link yet.

In all seriousness, this is what I love about the Montage M - I have three pads cued up - a brass pad and string pad I made from samples from the EasySounds Analog Experience sample pack, an FM-based pad, and then other sounds as required. Being able to bounce between and mix all of those with polyphony to spare since they are spread between engines is great. I would probably never go to an FM pad alone, but adding a little sing from the FM engine can be really tasteful. I dreamed that in the Kronos which can make all of those sounds, but there isn't enough polyphony on the Kronos to leave all that stuff on.

There are moments when I think about owning a vintage monster like a Fairlight/Synclavier/DX1/CS80, but then I remember I have Korg’s AN-1 in the Kronos with 80 voices, 2 CS80’s worth of AN in the Montage M, 20,000x the sampling power of the Fairlight in any of 10 different workstations, and I still can’t hear myself enough in the mix for any of it to matter much.

Are you mixing on them or playing/practicing through them? Many “near field” monitors are physically small and only marginally powerful. That’s fine for mixing at 80dB, but for me, those little guys don’t have enough go power to be enveloping. I have had Mackie HR 824s for 20 years and have enjoyed them as a reasonable mixing speaker, but more than that as powerful enough to enjoy playing through without worrying about toasting woofers. I played with some smaller speakers a long time ago and they didn’t have enough juice for me. I have used the JBL 305ps that Max mentioned and I agree for the money they sound good. I have contemplated replacing the HR 824s, but it seems like you go quickly from $1500/pair to $3500/pair for a reasonable step up.

Vans rule. The case that fits the M8x is the Gator GTSA-88KEYD which as you say adds 30lbs bringing the total to ~100lbs. The wheels on the case are rollerblade wheels which work very nice. I have had an unweighted action for the last couple of years (Fantom 7), but adjusted quickly to the M8x.

They fit the needs of a lot of churches, as well.

I’m a huge fan of 4K resolution - 3840x2160. In a 27” size a nice 4K monitor is almost paper sharp, and I run 150% screen scaling for a good balance of text size and screen real estate. A 32” 4K monitor is my current setup. For me, (I’m in my 40’s with reasonably good vision; YMMV on what is readable to you) the difference between 27” and 32” allows me to run at 100% screen scaling - I trade off a bit of sharpness compared to the 27” as the pixels are a bit larger, but the result is a huge amount of usable real estate. I agree on a single monitor - the bar in the middle is frustrating. A 27” is on the edge of too small for a single setup; for me a single 32” 4K has been great. The other things not mentioned include panel type and intended market. For any non-gaming purpose, you want an IPS panel if you can afford it. These are typically 60Hz monitors, but the colors and the viewing angle range are really good. Gaming monitors sacrifice viewing angle and color quality for faster response time so you can blast the alien sooner, and typically gaming monitors are lower resolution than a decent business/graphics monitor, as high resolution monitors take a huge amount of GPU power to drive at frame rates that make gamers happy.

The big OnStage two-tier Z stand is the only one that works for me for full-sized boards. The downside is that its stability and flexibility come at the expense of either disassembling it into multiple pieces, or in my case, chucking it in the vehicle fully assembled. As my daily driver is a full-sized Ford Transit cargo van that hasn’t been too much of an issue. If I take the time, it does come apart small enough to fit inside a quarter-pack road trunk, but assembly takes 3-5 minutes from fully broken down, and when disassembled, you’re left with 15 pieces including knobs that stick out awkwardly.

That’s the advantage of the Yamaha logo - it’s all straight lines, so with black tape and a careful hand applying white out you can make your own logo to put on any board. That darn O and G of KORG are way harder to copy.